The Interference

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The Interference by Newbie-Spud of Fanfiction.net is a series of FanFics that centers around the exploits of the author's self insert 'Alexander Karsath' as he ventures through different video game worlds and making alterations to the expected storyline. The series started with the original story set in the Kingdom Hearts universe and has such moved through the game worlds of Full Metal Alchemist: Curse of the Crimson Elixir, Chrono Trigger, and is currently in the game-verse of Jak II.

Although the author makes no secret of the fact that Alexander is part of a Self-Insert Fic, The Interference has managed to avoid the pitfalls that such stories tend to fall into and even manages to flow smoothly despite being complete novelizations of each game they feature. The author even manages to work elements of previous stories without them seeming out of place or forced in at the last minute.

There's been a hiatus recently due to Newbie-Spud taking way too many extracurricular activities, but once they are over he promises to get back to work.

EDIT: He's baaaaaaaaaaack~

Also accompanied by its Forum, The Interference: Legends.

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Tropes used in The Interference include:

• Achilles' Heel: Attacks that hit Alex and enter the keyhole on the Lockshield deal direct damage to his heart, and are far more damaging than other attacks. Except that one from Lavos that killed him in the third story, of course.
• Adaptation-Induced Plothole: Not the author's fault, since this is relatively new information (as of March 2012), but Tetsuya Nomura revealed that none of the other Organization members' Heartless counterparts were humanoid except for that of Xehanort, and at least many had been killed coincidentally during the course of the series. There is probably a logical explanation for how the Kingdom Hearts series can continue, but it has yet to be determined as of the current time.
• Alchemy: From Fullmetal Alchemist, yes.
  • Alchemy Is Magic: As in Fullmetal Alchemist.
• Anime Hair: Almost every game protagonist and Alexander himself.
  • Alex's case is kinda strange - he starts off with normal hair, but then the trope comes into effect when the three fairies give him his new costume.
  • Not Ed, however. His hair is almost perfectly possible... except for the bouncy fringe and Ahoge.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Erica Karsath in the second story, according to the other heroes and heroine, but mostly for Alex.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Joumae, the manifestation of the Lockshield's will, takes the form of Alex, but with Green Eyes and strange green armor. He has his own Lockshield design, the Kingdom Copy, which takes cues from the Kingdom Key Keyblade.
• Anti-Hero: Alex seems to be approaching one of these in the fourth story, while Jak is already there.
• A Storm Is Coming: The Black Wind howls for Alex.
• Back from the Dead: Alex in the third story.
  • Joumae in the fourth. Though this might not be good in the long run.
• Badass: All of the protagonists, but Alex, as someone who has gone through every story, is probably the top in that respect.
• Badass Longcoat: Subverted with Erica Karsath. She wears a black trenchcoat, but...she's Erica. Later Double Subverted when she willingly becomes one of The Heartless.
• Bag of Holding: In the form of an Etherspace pouch.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Alex is trained in Close Quarters Combat by Azelas in the fourth story.
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: His fighting style as a result.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: The Apprentices of Ansem the Wise have served as this for the sequels. Only one has appearing in each of them as a main villain, though.
• Brainy Brunette and Brown Eyes: Alex falls into both these categories quite neatly (although the 'brainy' part is more due to his knowledge of how things normally play out).
• Break the Cutie: The entire first few chapters of the fourth story are all about this.
• Brother-Sister Team: Subverted. Erica tries to help, but can't for multiple reasons. It Got Worse when she was kidnapped. Much. Worse.
• Brought Down to Badass: The Seal of Mar design doesn't give Alex any powers besides increased attack damage. But, granted, he still has Growth abilities.
• Cain and Abel: Erica and Alex respectively when the former becomes one of The Heartless. Abel wins, but becomes The Stoic about the entire affair as a result.
• Calling Your Attacks: It seems magic and special techniques in every universe need to be vocally invoked. For the heroes, anyway.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Though they aren't actually the source of all his powers, the magical garments Alex wears do allow for more magic use and give him access to the various Drive Forms.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Alex goes through what he experiences as two years of constant bombardments with Dark Eco in the first few chapters of the fourth story along with Jak.
• Combat Pragmatist: Alex pulled this in the first story by cutting the seams holding Oogie Boogie together and then promptly lampshading it. And it happens even more later on once he acquires Alchemy.
  • It's through something akin to this that he saves Axel from dying in the first story - via making him play by the rules of normal gameplay as a party member and defeating the oncoming streams of Assassins with a Combination Attack.
• Dangerous Fifteenth Birthday: Three of the stories started on Alex's birthday due to the Universal Failsafe Law; the first of these is where Erica dies the second is where Alex dies, and the third is where Alex is jailed for two years, although that actually happens the day afterwards.
• Dark Is Edgy: Alexander's AntiForm has these abilities. Even more so after two straight years of Dark Eco exposure in the fourth story.
  • Thus far, each of the Apprentices of Ansem the Wise seem to only use darkness based abilities as powers, rather than their Nobodies' Elemental Powers.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Something of a borderline example; as, even though Alex's defining element is darkness (as opposed to Sora's light), it isn't expressively stated that this is a good or a bad thing, just something that is.
  • However, excessive darkness leads to dual personalities, infrequent and easily-triggered outbreaks into Anti-Form, and occasionally insanity.
  • Also, excessive darkness given a body can become a pretty sadistic Enemy Without.
• Deadpan Snarker: Joumae, Alex's mental counterpart; Roxas has his moments too.
• Deep-Immersion Gaming: The premise takes this Up to Eleven and runs with it.
• De-Power: May cross into Brought Down to Normal, but Alex, after having his garments replaced be prisonwear at the beginning of the fourth story is noticeably weaker and more damage prone.
• Disappeared Dad: Peter doesn't live with the rest of the family anymore.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Alex dreams of Ed and Al fighting against Scar in the epilogue of the first story.
• Eleventh-Hour Superpower: The Time Fracture design in the third story. Unlike most examples, this one sticks.
• Empathic Weapon: Sort of. Joumae is the Anthropomorphic Personification manifestation of the Lockshield's will, and so can decide who it can be summoned by at one point in the third story, or decide not to be summoned at all.
• Enemy Without: Joumae.
• Epiphany Therapy: Actually averted in the case of Alex's feelings about Erica's corruption and suicide due to the intervention of Dilan. He talks to Frog about it, and keeps it to himself mostly, but it takes a conversation with Lucca Ashtar for him to actually start to overcome his stoicism about the whole thing.
• Equivalent Exchange:Alex loses Joumae temporarily in the second story as exchange for "learning" alchemy when Scar used his "Touch of Destruction" on the Lockshield.
• Everything Fades: As per the original games, but not Jak II.
• Evil Counterpart: Anti-Alex in the second story, literally.
  • [[spoiler:Joumae in the fourth story, not as literally.
• Evil Former Friend: Joumae, formerly a Sour Supporter or Sarcastic Devotee in the first three stories, has become basically his new Evil Counterpart as of gaining a body of his own, even poisoning his body with Kingdom Hearts Darkness by unlocking his heart and making all of his powers and very being unstable.
• Evil Makeover: Heartless Erica
• Expy: Since gaining a body, Joumae has become a pretty solid expy of Vanitas, in part likely due to the Fridge Brilliance.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: In addition to the battle with Xemnas in the Realm of Nothingness, Elaeus is followed to his own personal pocket dimension that he had used to Time Travel in Guardia using Alex's newly created Time Fracture design.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The Fire series, Blizzard series, and Thunder series respectively, if the Heartless Seal Lockshield design is active.
• Foreshadowing: The Sequel Hook being an example of foreshadowing, and Alex's death in the third story being a subject of foreshadowing that nonetheless didn't seem to work for very many people.
• Four Is Death: The fourth story thus far has had the deaths of Alexander's remaining innocence, Joumae, and Azelas. Ironically, this is also the story with the Heartless villain being that of Ansem's fourth Apprentice to become a Heartless, Even.
• Functional Magic: Alchemy.
• Game Music: What the author used to name his chapters in the first story.
• Genre Savvy: Alex is this, first and foremost. Other characters develop this knowledge over time, in varying degrees.
• Global Currency: Munny can be spent anywhere. One reason why Level Grinding becomes completely pointless in later stories.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck: Variation - Alex actively censors himself. It takes work to do so, apparently.
• Hammerspace: Nicknamed 'Etherspace' and lampshaded as appropriate.
• Heel Face Turn: Erica Karsath in the second story, Joumae in the fourth.
• Hero-Killer: Technically it was Lavos who did it, but Elaeus was the one to Alex.
• Heroic Mime: Crono in the third story, in line with his game; though he still speaks a few times making this a partial subversion.
• Heroic RROD: Done oddly. Alex transfers all of his Light'Em Up power of his Final Form into Dilan in the second story, causing him to self-destruct due to being composed of darkness.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: It has been shown that Alex can summon his weapon out of literally nowhere.
• Jump Physics: Lampshaded at times, played straight at others.
• Karmic Death: Erica Karsath in the second story; she made the choice to become a Heartless because she was jealous of her brother and was killed by him in a later chapter.
• Kick the Dog: Subjective, but some people might consider the Karmic Death example one of these.
• Kid Hero: Let's see... Sora, Riku, and Kairi in the first and second; Edward and Alphonse in the second and third; Crono, Lucca, and Marle in the third; Jak in the fourth; and Alex in all of them.
• Killed Off for Real: Erica; see the Karmic Death example.
  • Joumae in the fourth story.
• Light'Em Up: Alex's Final Form has powers to this effect.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Alex's main weapon is called the Lockshield. Because it's opposite to the Keyblade.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Four games and counting. One of which happens to link to nearly every major Disney film and classic cartoon short in existence.
• Meaningful Name: Joumae, whose name means 'lock'. Yes, he did that on purpose.
  • Alexander, by accident - the name means either 'Helper of Men' or 'Defender of Men'. Alex wields a shield, and does his best to assist major characters rather than taking their spotlight.
• Morph Weapon: The Lockshield has several designs, which can be switched between to alter abilities granted. So far, seven designs are known, and five have come up in the story.
• Nobody Poops: The special outfit Alex gains imbues him with the universal body-functional ignorance of video game characters, i.e. less need to sleep, eat, or maintain those bodily functions that would be distracting and detrimental to a real-life adventurer.
• Not a Morning Person: Alex doesn't wake up very easily. Actually comes into play as a minor plot point in the rewrite.
• Our Hero Is Dead: Alex in the third story, majorly blindsiding the readers.
• Official Couple: Aside from the canon couples in the games, Alex gets paired with Lucca in the third story.
  • However, the author has stated that since he was away being torture for what he considers two consecutive years, the spark is probably very much diminished.
• Pet the Dog: Subverted. Alex is offered 10,000 Gold for a piece of jerky he bought for 9,900. Despite being told he can get a profit of 100, he gives the jerky away and the woman runs back home to teach her children about the meaning of charity ... and then slowly realises he's just lost a lot of money. For extra points, this entire sequence has no reason for being other than to get rid of the jerky.
• Punny Name: Any character who had one in the original games, but Joumae counts somewhat. The Lockshield itself, of course, since it's the literal opposite of 'Keyblade'.
• Recruiting the Criminal: While Alex wasn't a criminal in the normal sense, during the fourth story he is hired for the Krimzon Guard.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Since the third story takes place in the Chrono Trigger game, the entire party gets this.
  • Effected by Alex once he returns to the real world at the beginning of the third story... but he only finds out at the start of the fourth story, when he discovers his sister's bed and things have disappeared from her and her mother's room.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Azelas in the fourth story.
• Self-Insert Fic: Admittedly, this is one of the better ones.
• Sequel Hook: See Dreaming of Things to Come.
• Shirtless Scene: Chapter 6 in the fourth story.
• Shock and Awe: The powers granted by the Lightning Guard design and the Time Fracture.
• Shout-Out, possibly: Alex's parents are called Wendi and Peter. They are finally seen and named in the story where Alex is forced to grow up. Newbie-Spud has said that he did not realize this until it was brought up.
• Sibling Rivalry: Erica and Alex, as noted by the second story and spelled out by the third. It Got Worse in the second story, though.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Erica's justification for her Face Heel Turn and for turning herself into a Heartless was that Alex was this for her Interference into Amestris.
• Super-Powered Evil Side: Apart from Dark Jak, what Anti-Alex becomes in the fourth story.
• Talking to Themself: Everybody with a mental counterpart has the ability; Joumae is a specific example, but there's also Roxas (for Sora), Naminé (for Kairi) and Xehanort, oddly (for Riku).
• The Corrupter:Dilan, who manipulated Erica into turning herself into a Heartless.
• The Load: Erica Karsath when she starts out. She becomes a somewhat bigger problem later on.
• Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Strike Raid for Alex, modified from Sora's version.
• Time Master: Aside from the Gates in Guardia, the Time Fracture design grants several time-related powers to Alex.
• Time Stands Still: It is shown that this happens both whenever Alex(or anyone else for that matter) leaves the real world for the game world and once he has completed the events of the game world and returned home to give the timelines time to sync up. It even comes up as a plot point in the fourth story.
• Torture Technician: Even, who oversaw the Cold-Blooded Torture of Alex in the first few chapters of the fourth story.
• Weapon of Choice: The Lockshield for Alex. The Heartless of the Apprentices of Ansem the Wise each have their own weapons, as do each of the protagonists.
  • Dilan had a single spear, and later utilizes Jack Crowley as a Guardian Heartless.
    • Erica also uses the same kind of weapon, first constructed by Alex to make her less of The Load, then given by Dilan to fight Alex after her Face Heel Turn.
  • Elaeus uses a large sword.
  • Even wields an identical copy of the Kingdom Copy Lockshield.
• Word of God: He is very open with readers and friends about things like this and responds to questions.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Related to the Time Stands Still entry; in the fourth story Alex spends a full TWO YEARS in Prison while the timelines of the other universes sync up to his and he FINALLY gets rescued.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Highly probable, since Alex is, since the fourth story, no longer human on a genetic level. If he ever were to return to the real world for an extended period, he would be likely experimented on or hunted.